


Tart

by ReforgedMind (Churbooseanon)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Family, Gen, Loss, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Thace as Keith's Dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 04:59:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9476720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/ReforgedMind
Summary: Outside of the village where Thace had grown up there had been a cliff from which grew a single stunted bush. One whose dangerously placed fruit would follow him the rest of his life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I liked Thace too much. He's perfect bait for me as a writer. So, despite my desires of my first offering to the fandom being more paladin focused, this happened when I was not expecting it.

Outside of the village where Thace had grown up there had been a cliff from which grew a single stunted leburberry bush. Most people didn’t care for the small, tart fruits, and the sweeter candies that could be made from them took too long to make to really be worth the time of most people. Perhaps more people disliked them because this, the only leburberry bush in miles of town was so dangerously placed. The chalky texture of the stone could see it crumbling under the weight of a full grown Galra, cracks grew easily if a claw was put out of place, and reliable hand and footholds could rarely be counted on to be useful on the way back down. 

When he was nine years old Thace was hardly wise enough to take any of this into consideration. Kits were like that oftentimes. They could be too adventurous, too curious, and far too hungry to find freedom that was dangerous here in the deserts to be allowed on their own around the cliffs. Thace, though, didn’t consider that when he pondered the cliffs. What he thought about was how his mother loved leburberry juice, and how she mumbled about wanting it more than anything now that she had a new kit on the way. With his father gone long enough on business that Thace was growing afraid that he wouldn’t remember his Papur’s voice when he heard it, it was clearly up to him to help his Mamur with the coming kit. Which meant he had to be the one to fetch those leburberries for her. It wouldn’t be a problem at all. Thace was light, he was agile, and there was no one in his village that could climb just as well as he could. With all that in mind and a basket over his shoulder, he set out to get the thing his mother most desired. 

There was a way that leburberries looked in the light of the setting sun of his world that Thace loved more than anything. Something in how the waxy, golden skin of the fruit caught the light of the sun, how it stood out like a little pearl if held up against the rich blue of the skin, was just pleasing. Plus the juice felt like a forbidden treat with how rare it was, and when he reached the top he was going to pop a few of them in his mouth to to feel them burst and make his mouth twist and lips pucker. The taste alone would almost be as valuable as his mother’s joy, or the pure and simple sight of them in the morning sun. It would be a memory for a lifetime. 

It was a memory for a lifetime. How could he not remember the way the little pods of tart wonder shone against the azure sky with red painted clouds? They were like beacons, stars one could almost reach out and touch. His hand had reached up toward them as if they could save him as he fell. Never would he forgot the sight of them beyond his clawing hands, or the sensation of his heart and stomach in his throat. In his life there was no terror that clung to him as firmly as both child and adult as that fall did. For years after he could not look to the cliff and the stunted bush without the ground seeming to fail beneath his feet, without little flashes of waxy gold to pop up before his eyes. 

Yet it was a thought that stuck with him most in those fleeting seconds that scared him almost as much as the fall. He had failed his Mamur, he was letting his family down. She had wanted those berries so very much, and instead of getting them for her, instead of helping with his future brother or sister, he was going to make it so Mamur was hurt. She would be sad and alone until Papur came back, and who would get the groceries, who would help her clean, who would get the doctor when the kit came? 

When he woke up a month later his Mamur and Papur were both their, their fur clumped together from too many shed tears, and Thace swore he would never let them down again. His family needed him, and he was going to be there for them. 

Years later, when an army battalion came through their village to conscript the young men, when he found he had no choice but to abandon his family and fail in his promise, Thace could have sworn he saw a glimmer of light over waxy golden skin. 

Leburberries were far more common after he left home. Thace balked at his first sight of a glass of leburberry juice as part of his meal in training. Some soldier he was sat next to went on and on about how his family worked one of the farms that collected the very fruits that were tithed to the military. Teased that everyone drinking the juice was probably drinking something his own hands had been on. For a while Thace had stared at his glass and finally pushed it toward the talkative soldier, eager to be away from it. He had let his family down again. How could he even begin to enjoy the taste? 

They seemed to follow him, the little fruit. They were serving leburberry jam with dinner when he received the message from home that his sister had passed bearing her own child, one who had not made it through the labor. The young woman he was seeing during his first rotation on a ship brought leburberry wine to his room on the night she meant to make him sing to her, had just come through the door with it as the video call from his mother ended, informing him that his father had lost the business and become sick. His first time in medical after being injured on a ‘placification’ mission on a recently conquered planet had yielded a plate of some sort of fowl dressed with leburberries and melon when a commanding officer brusquely informed him that his mother had passed in an aircar accident. 

There was no one left for him in that moment, and the other Galra had known it. The last of Thace’s family had been lost to him, his purpose gone. What repercussions would there be for anyone if he just got up and walked away? Disappeared into the too-thick jungles of this world and let it take him away? The man looked down at him with pity and revealed a dagger up his wrist. Would Thace like a new purpose, something to fight for his family would be proud of? Could he devote himself to something that could change the whole of the Galra species, give them something worth being again? Could he be a blade to cut the bindings Zarkon had placed around their people? 

Thace had looked down at the berries on the plate before him. They were a reminder, an accusation. He had failed them away. Every time they came they proved it. He had failed them, would always fail them. But maybe this, maybe in this he could do something right, for the first time. 

He pushed the plate aside and offered his arm, his heart, his loyalty. By giving himself completely to this, he would only have the purpose to live for. No one person alone could be hurt by being important to him. And the Blades could protect themselves, that much he knew. 

Nothing could have prepared him for her. The way she moved when she fought to prove herself worthy of her weapon. The number of times she put him on his back on the mat in their few sparring sessions. The way she had taken her orders with such certainty, such faith, such strength. It was a mistake, to come to love her, but when was Thace able to keep himself falling? 

When he made it back to report to the Blades after being promoted to be the second for Prorok, she was gone. No one told him how, no one told him why. All he knew was how they chose to grieve. 

Golden wax that was warm like a Galra’s eyes. The strong, violet-tinged leaves to recall the fragility of Galra skin. The spicy scent of the bark was supposed to remind one of the spice of life itself. And the tartness of the leburberry in the middle of it all to speak to the sour taste death left in the mouths of the living. The Blades moved forward, and the fruited twig was to remind them of that. Thace roared in fury and threw the thing in Antok’s face, clawed and swore and struck until he was left weak and sobbing on the floor. There had been a message, weeks before. There had been a kit on the way. Of course there had, because he was not allowed to be happy. 

Once more he found himself swearing as Antok pulled him to his feet. Never again. His will, his strength, his power would be for the Galra. Their people needed the strength of the Blades to cut them free of the power of their emperor. Give yourself to everyone else, Antok suggested, and even when you fall you will have a purpose to it. Failure came only in death, and even death had a power to grant freedom. Never grieve a life given so willingly to others. She would want that of Thace. Rededicate yourself and there is purpose. And purpose keeps you moving on. Gets him through the advent of the paladins, the incident at central command, and even everything the Druids could dish out. 

Things change when he sees those violet eyes, that hair so dark it was almost black, and a hand clutching the sword of a Blade he knows too well. Turned out there was still one person he could fail, one he had never known was out there. All he could think was that paladin looked so much like his Mamur, and the thought made his chest ache. 

Keith, the kit offers as his name, and Thace wants to laugh. It isn’t a Galra name, but he knows. Blood calls to blood and he wonders if humans have fruit so tart as a leburberry. Has he tasted such a fruit? Does he like it like Thace’s Mamur had? Could the boy climb like no one else and did he revel in azure skies painted red at sunset? Did he ever feel like all he could do was let someone else down no matter how hard he tried? Or did he succeed where Thace had failed? Could he know he was as brave as his Mamur and as driven as his Granpapur, and that he burned as bright as a star he’d never seen? He was a blazing star in Thace’s vision, a tree growing in defiance of sun and wind and chalk soft rock. Not even Zarkon had brought him down. 

If only Thace was that strong, that quick, that confident. If only he had not been caught. 

There are no leburberries around them, but Thace could almost swear that the way pain flashed in front of his eyes looked like golden waxed berries. Could see them in the angry heat that radiated off of the crystal as it moved towards overloading. And the high pitched whine as it rushed toward the end felt like the same sort of shock on the system as a burst of flavor over the lips of a child. 

For the life of him, Thace could not bear to look at the end. Just in case someone around him managed to bring a handful of them in just to let him know how he failed. 

He can almost taste them, though. Tart like the sour edge death leaves in the mouth. But sweet too. Like candy yet to be made and life yet to be lived.


End file.
